At the risk of emitting a strong Isa energy, we still need three things from the hosts, which are:
1. A clear statement that attempting to recreate Sagiri vs. Santu was a mistake and won't be considered precedent moving forward
2. A better explanation as to why the decision was made to now give Sagiri the win after all
3. An apology to Santu and the Foxes
For point 1, as stated by Hogg, ABR and others, if your timer runs out you lose the game. If your disconnection timer runs out, the hosts can look into a possible recreation. Santu's connection was acting up and it made him unable to click / made it unable for the sim to register the move clicked. That really sucks and it's a shit way to lose, but ultimately that's how it is sometimes and even if it's impossible to fix in the moment, a player's connection is their own responsibility at the end of the day. We know it wasn't the server causing this, as Santu's opponent didn't experience any issues and neither did either player in the other SCL game that was going on at the same time, or at any point since.
I warned Merritt not to go forward with the recreation as soon as he logged in to set one up, but a player claiming it must have been the server's fault was apparently enough to throw established policy out the window and move forward with it anyway.
If we then fast forward past the inability the recreate properly, which is unfortunate but not unprecedented (and perhaps incentive for a rewrite of the guide?), we get hours of no updates and ultimately the decision that should've been made originally is announced; Sagiri is given the win. However, for this reason:
At this point, alternative options such as forcing a rematch with different teams require a higher threshold of proof that the simulator was glitching. As Santu was unable to provide conclusive evidence that they were experiencing a true simulator glitch, the host team is forced to rule as though it did not actually occur. Since Santu's normal timer ran out, Sagiri is given the win by timer.
Excuse me? Santu was unable to provide conclusive evidence? How the hell is anyone supposed to prove whether or not their connection issues are caused by their internet or by the server? What could you possibly have expected Santu to offer you that might have actually satisfied your request? This makes no sense at all and is a terrible reason to overturn the decision. Hogg explained eloquently already that it's really tricky to take back a decision like this once it's made, even if it is a mistake, because you've given a team hope and a reason to start preparing another team. The decision to overturn is correct, however it cannot be stated in this way and needs to be revised and corrected immediately. Only our incredible dev team can determine if there are actual server issues and 99% of the time a (now thankfully rare) timeout happens it's because a player managed their time poorly, and/or had a poor connection to begin with. The justification for overturning should be that you made the wrong decision in the first place. You need to take accountability for choosing to recreate and not just for messing it up.
I expect the TD team to follow up on Merritt's announcement post soon, as the current conclusion sets a terrible and nonsensical precedent. It's that or maybe someone can post a thread or tutorial on how we can best all start live recording our games and tracking our connection strength simultaneously, just in case we ever have to meet the hosts' 'threshold of proof' for 'conclusive evidence' (??). The existing timer policy is specifically set up in a way that it's both lenient towards the players with a full 300 second disconnection timer and the option to recreate if they still can't get back on in time, while at the same time taking the onus away from biased parties - particularly in team tournaments - and even hosts. If that's not good enough for the current day TD team anymore, then fair enough. You could think about revisiting the rules after the tournament. Until then, however, take a moment to realize what you're doing when you go entirely off script like this. You're breaking your own policy on an unfounded whim. I can say unfounded there, too, as you've said Santu's evidence was not sufficient yourself. Please rectify this mistake as soon as possible so we can move on from this painfully avoidable situation already and enjoy the games.
Edit:
ty